Apparatus for charging a distributor device for bulk materials



March 20, 1962 H. w. MAIER ET AL APPARATUS FOR CHARGING A DISTRIBUTOR DEVICE FOR BULK MATERIALS 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Nov. 13, 1959 INVENTORS HARTMUT WOLFGANG MAIER HELMUT SCHUCHARDT ERNST KUEHNER ATTORNEY March 20, 1962 H. w. MAIER ET AL 3,025,980

APPARATUS FOR CHARGING A DISTRIBUTOR DEVICE FOR BULK MATERIALS Filed Nov. 13, 1959 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTORS HARTMUT WOLFGANG MAIER HELMUT SCHUCHARDT ERNST KUEHNER BY Z ATT RNEY March 20, 1962 H. w MAIER ETAL 3,025,980

APPARATUS FOR CHARGING A DISTRIBUTOR DEVICE FOR BULK MATERIALS Filed Nov. 13, 1959 s Sheets-Sheet s FIG. 4.

INVENTORS HARTMUT WOLFGANG MAIER HELMUT SCHUCHARDT ERNST KUEHNER ATTORNEY APPARATUS FOR CHARGING A DISTRIBUTOR DEVICE FOR BULK MATERIALS Hartmut W. Maier and Helmut Schuchardt, Ettlingen,

Baden, and Ernst Kirchner, Bruchhausen, Germany, assignors to Fa. Elba-Werk Ettlinger Baumaschinenund Hebezeugtabrih G.m.b.H., Ettlingen, Baden, Germany, a corporation of Germany Filed Nov. 13, 1959, Ser. No. 852,877 Claims priority, application Germany Nov. 13, 1958 8 Claims. (Cl. 21410) The present invention relates to an apparatus for charging of a distribution device for bulk materials, particu larly building materials.

The present invention is concerned mainly with a container device having a boom movable by hand and carrying the Windlass and control elements for the Windlass disposed at the end of the boom, which control elements are particularly suitable for charging of distribution devices called, for instance, distribution star or distribution wall for concrete mixing machines.

It is known to provide a charging device with a ropecontainer structure and with a boom which is mechanically rotatable on the distribution device and is formed as a seat for the operator and swingable in a vertical plane with a return roller carrying a platform. This charging device is, however, comparatively heavy and expensive, since the overweight of the boom must be taken up substantially by the rotary support of the platform. Its use is furthermore somewhat limited, since its application depends on the presence of a supporting face of a larger diameter for the rotary support of the platform at the head of the distribution device and the latter must also be made sufliciently stabile, that it can assume the weight of the charging device and its torsion forces during swinging of the latter.

A similar arrangement of simpler structure is also known for the direct charging of concrete mixing machines with a rope-container device, in which the weight of the boom which is horizontally swingable upon a post is balanced out by a counter-weight, which is, however, not suitable due to the lack of possibility of inclination of the boom around a horizontal axis, as well as in view of a pull for the charging container directed exclusively towards a practically at even ground disposed point for the charging of a distributor with sloped stored goods above the removing point.

Finally, an arrangement is also known for the feeding of transport means in which the Windlass is disposed on the side opposite a short, step-wise inclin'able boom with a return roller of a frame rotatable upon a vertical axis.

It is one object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for charging a distribution device for bulk materials, particularly of building material which apparatus avoids the drawbacks of the described devices for charging distributors and to make the arrangement of the boom on the distribution device independent, that means universally applicable, from the structure of said distribution device due to the particular structure of the boom serving as carrier for the counter-roller, and to make possible a differentiated control of the path of the container without requiring changing time periods directly by the operator.

It is another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for charging a distribution device for bulk materials, particularly of building material, wherein the boom is formed as a lever with arms of diiferent sizes with a return roller disposed at the ends of one of its arms, as known per se, for the return rope of a container, which lever is swingable upon a vertical axis at the head of the distribution device horizontally and vertically upon a horizontal axis extending in the longitudinal direction of said previously mentioned axis, or disposed in its immedi- 3,925,989 Patented Mar. 20, 1962 ate vicinity. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the longer arm of the lever, thus the actual cantilever, is divided in such a manner that between the head piece, swingably disposed on the distributor, and the end of the arm, carrying the return roller for the return rope, portions of diflferent lengths and/ or with different angular adjustments are selectively inserted, or that such portions, the ends of which are provided with a return roller and thus itself form the end point of the cantilever, may be secured to the head piece. For compensation of the greater weight of the cantilever, the shorter lever arm has disposed thereon, in known manner, two separate or jointly driven windlasses, which in accordance with the present invention maintain the boom in an indifferent balance and by alternative start of operation cause the movement of the container. For the balancing of the weight, advantageously, in accordance with the present invention, means are provided for receiving of ballast, for instance water, dry sand or gravel, changeable as to the quantity additionally to the' windlasses, by means of which a counter-weight formed by the short lever "arm, the windlasses and the changeable ballast at all times, without any effort, adjustment can be provided corresponding to the prevailing weight of the long lever arm, thus of the boom. This means comprises, advantageously, a container with an inlet and an outlet opening disposed at its lowest point, which by proper formation of the short lever arm of the boom may be disposed in the latter, so that it does not interfere either with the arrangement, nor with the rope guide of the windlasses, nor interferes with the swinging movement of the boom or limits the movement of the latter.

In accordance with the present invention, the manually operated control elements for the windlasses, as well as, if necessary, a support are disposed at the end of the boom, which support prevents the engagement of the boom point during the loading pull of the container and which permits the return of the container to the return roller disposed on the boom end. This support may be connected furthermore with a pin, that the support simultaneously is secured against undesirable horizontal swinging movements of the cantilever, if the pin is pushed into the ground. For this reason it is of advantage to equip the pin and the support, respectively, at the boom point with foot rests or with a seat, over which the operator or operators may use advantageously their own weight for inserting of the pin into the ground. Of course, the arrest of the boom may be obtained also by other means, for instance by a resting device with a corresponding counterpiece at the head of the distribution device operated from the boom end, or by means of a hydraulic clamping de vice. The support may, however, be equipped also at its lower end with a suitably simple running gear, by means of which the boom end may be rolled around the stored goods during a swinging movement.

The control of the Windlass, as much as it is not automatically operated, as well as the swinging of the boom being in an inditferent balance over the total stored goods by an operator, who moves, walking along the periphery of the stored goods and thereby pulls the boom, as well as the arresting of the boom against undesirable swinging movements, thus all for the function of the apparatus of the present invention required or desirable measures may be performed from the end point of the boom and the operator does not leave his place of operation under any circumstances.

With these and other objects in view, which will become apparent in the following detailed description, the present invention will be clearly understood in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIGURE 1 is a side elevation of the apparatus of the present invention showing diagrammatically the basic arrangement of the device;

FIG. 2 is a fragmentary side elevation of a boom end portion with a pin;

FIG. 3 is a side elevation of another embodiment of the apparatus of the present invention in connection with an application on a slope;

FIG. 4 is a top plan view of the apparatus indicating different angular position thereof; and

FIG. 5 is a section through a portion of the boom.

Referring now to the drawings, the distributor device 2 which is surrounded by the bulk materials 1 in a sectorlike arrangement, carries at its top a forked head 3 which is mounted for rotation in a horizontal plane upon the vertical axle 2. A boom 4 consisting of a long lever arm 4 and a short lever arm 4" is mounted for a vertical swinging movement in the forked head 3, for instance in the direction A-B. The boom 4 carries at its outer end preferably a support 8 which is equipped with wheels 5 or with a pin 6, shown in FIG. 2 of the drawings, and possibly also with a seat 7 for the operator. Its long lever arm 4' is advantageously divided in such a manner that between a headpiece 9 and an end piece 10 carrying the support 8, intermediate pieces 11 of different shape and length are disposed, for instance by means of flanges 12 for connection of the respective pieces, so that the boom 4 in a variation of its normal structure, shown in dotted line in FIG. 1, with the intermediate piece 13, may also be cranked upwardly or downwardly, and/ or appreciably extended. Such possibility of variation is particularly of advantage, if the concrete mixing machine 14, as shown in FIG. 3, must be disposed on a slope or if, as shown in FIG. 1, particularly long storing boxes 1 are required. It is to be understood, however, that the boom 4 may be formed integrally of one piece, in accordance with the present invention.

At its short lever arm 4", the boom 4 carries two winch es of which the upper winch 15 is formed as pulling winch, and the lower winch 16 with possibly lesser driving force as return winch for the pulling rope 17 and the container 20 which is moved by means of the return rope 19 over the return rollers 18. As shown in FIG. 4, the windlasses may be combined also in a two-drum winch 21 with common drive 22 and with rope drums separately controlled by means of couplings. They are controlled by means of manually operated control elements 23 at the outer end piece 10 of the boom 4 by the operator sitting on the seat 7.

The end of the short lever arm 4" is, in accordance with the embodiment disclosed in FIG. 5, formed as a watertight container 24 which is equipped with a filling opening 25, as well as with an escape opening 26, the closing screw 27 of which is equipped with a cock 28. If, now, a liquid as for instance water, or a flowing rigid material as dry sand or fine gravel is filled through the opening into the container 24, upon correct measuring of the amount of the ballast, the lost balance, caused by the greater length of the intermediate piece 11, as compared with the normal intermediate piece 13, may be regained between the short lever arm 4 with the windlasses 15, 16 and the long lever arm 4 for each combination of intermediate pieces without any particular effort, whereby the desired amount of ballast may be easily obtained by releasing of some of the filled in material through the escape opening 26.

While we have disclosed several embodiments of the present invention, it is to be understood that these embodiments are given by example only and not in a limiting sense, the scope of the present invention being determined by the objects and the claims.

We claim:

1. An apparatus for collecting bulk material, particularly building material, comprising a boom,

a support for said boom surrounded by said bulk material, means for swinging said boom about the vertical axis of said support to swing in a horizontal plane and about a horizontal axis to swing in a vertical plane,

said boom comprising a two-armed lever having arms of different lengths and being supported at about its center of gravity,

a wheeled support secured to the free end of the longer of said arms of said two-armed lever to support said longer of said arms on the 'ground, so that said boom bridges over said bulk material between the pivot point of said double-armed lever and said wheeled support,

a scraper operatively connected with said boom and movable along said bulk material,

a pulling rope and a return rope secured to said scraper,

a return roller disposed at the outer end of said longer of said lever arms and guiding said return rope,

at least one winch operating said pulling rope and said return rope, and

control means for said winch disposed on said wheeled support.

2. The apparatus, as set forth in claim 1, wherein the longer of said arms of said lever comprises at least two members releasably secured to each other and said two members being angularly disposed relative to each other.

3. The apparatus, as set forth in claim 1, which includes at least one Windlass disposed at the shorter of said arms of said lever.

4. The apparatus, as set forth in claim 1, which includes a container attached to said shorter arm and receiving a counterbalance weight,

said winch mounted on said container, and

said container with said counter-balance weight and said winch functioning jointly as a counter-balance for said boom.

5. The apparatus, as set forth in claim 4, wherein said counter-balance weight comprises a liquid.

6. The apparatus, as set forth in claim 4, wherein said counter-balance Weight comprises a flowing rigid material.

7. The apparatus, as set forth in claim 1, which includes a pin disposed at the free outer end of the longer of said arms of said lever to provide a support for said longer of said arms penetrating the ground.

8. The apparatus, as set forth in claim 1, which includes means for arresting the horizontal swinging movement of said boom.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 782,694 Piez Feb. 14, 1905 827,219 Dlouhy July 31, 1906 1,482,474 Manierre Feb. 5, 1924 2,809,756 Bannister Oct. 15, 1957 FOREIGN PATENTS 475,556 France Mar. 8, 1 915 

